1. Field of Invention
The present disclosure relates to a wound dressing; more particularly to an alginate wound dressing.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, skin wounds should be kept relatively dry so as to facilitate the healing process of the wounds may. Hence, gauzes are conventionally used to keep the wounds sterile and dry. However, gauzes may sometimes adhere to the tissues or exudates of the wound. Such adhesion may result in a secondary damage to the tissues around the wound during the removal of the gauzes.
Recently, it is established that a moistening environment may facilitate the healing of the wounds. The fluids secreted by the wound may contain various growth factors that are advantageous to the wound healing. These findings lead to the development of sealing wound dressing such as polyurethane membranes, or wound dressings containing materials such as chitin/chitosan, collagen or alginate.
Main components of alginates or alginate compounds are algal polysaccharides extracted from natural algae. Commercially available alginate wound dressings may be in the form of non-woven fabrics, membranes and sponges. For example, wound dressing KALTOSTAT® provided by BritCair, UK is in the form of non-woven fabrics.
Nevertheless, several disadvantages may be associated with existing alginate wound dressing in the form of non-woven fabrics. For example, physiological saline is usually applied to the wound tissues to wash away the remaining gels and exudates during the wound dressing removal process. However, the non-woven fabrics may usually break upon the washing treatment. Besides, conventional non-woven fabrics of the wound dressing are often made of chopped fibers (staples), which tend to come off the non-woven fabrics and adhere to the wound tissues to form short piles that may slowdown the healing of the wounds.
In view of the foregoing, there exists in the related art a need for a novel alginate wound dressing.